Avatar: Fire And Ash is one of the most exciting 2025 movie releases left, chiefly because of the potential it has to become another box office phenomenon. It follows The Way of Water, which became one of the highest -grossing movies ever alongside the first Avatar. When James Cameron made The Way of Water, he also simultaneously made Fire And Ash, so I had to ask the filmmaker how the audience reaction of the first sequel may have affected the upcoming release. Let’s get into how he answered.
Avatar 2 & 3 Were Shot At Once, But What Happened After Way Of Water’s Release?
During CinemaBlend’s conversation with James Cameron for Fire And Ash, I asked the writer/director/producer what might have changed about the third Avatar movie after the second movie came out. In his words:
That is the best question anybody's asked me yet, because it's a fluid process, right? The beautiful thing about performance capture is that we can reproduce any set or setting in the movie almost instantly, within an hour or so. We don't have to go back to a location. We don't have to go back to some huge built set that's been torn down. So, after The Way of Water came out, there were certain things that emerged that required maybe a bit of clarification, and there were some things that I pushed out of Way Of Water in editing into movie three. So, it was all adjusting itself. And also, over the course of time, I saw some things that I felt I had done slightly wrong in the script.
Now, when James Cameron initially wrote the sequel to Avatar, the story that became The Way of Water and Fire And Ash was actually one very long script until it was decided to split things up into two movies. That being said, both movies were initially shot at the same time over five years ago at this point. But as Cameron told us, he thought of the process of releasing both movies as a “fluid” process. As he also shared:
We started production in September of ‘17 and we were capturing for both films. So that was an 18 month period back then to capture The Way Of Water and Fire And Ash at the same time. And then we revisited it and sometimes it would be a day here or a week there. But it's been ongoing up to, I'd say a year ago, ain't done till it's shipped, and it got shipped about three weeks ago.
It’s pretty wild to imagine that both movies were filmed all that time ago, until you look at how the Avatar kids have grown up since and realize it. As Cameron told us, while a lot of it was filmed back with Way of Water, he did call up the actors and do some additional filming following the second movie’s release. Oh, and the movie wasn’t even fully done until about a month ago.
The Changes Made To Fire And Ash After The Way Of Water
That leads us to some changes that should be noted as you watch the movie this weekend , which our Avatar: Fire And Ash review says “sticks the landing” amongst many reactions from early viewers. As Cameron pointed out:
One, Jake doesn't get the Turuk in the shooting script of Fire and Ash, so I pulled that forward actually from a scene that was taking place in movie four, cause I said, ‘No, I've gotta answer this question.’
You can look forward to Jake reuniting with his flame-colored flying animal, which Cameron initially had in store for the fourth movie. He also told us about one element that was inspired by audience interest:
Payakan emerged as one of our most favorite characters in movie two. He wasn't that big a player in movie three. So, I reworked some stuff and I gave him more of a role because in my mind, the story had moved on to another problem, but there was some contouring involved. So it never adds the actors, they crack up over it, ‘Okay, when are we gonna get called back?’ Because it's evolving and it should.
Payakan is, of course, the whale-like Tulkun that Lo’ak befriends in Way of Water. After seeing how people reacted to this part of the storyline, he decided to extend the storyline. Cameron also said this:
Some notes from Zoe [Saldaña] gave me some ideas for maybe not a whole scene, but maybe a way in which part of a scene was played. And, 'cause she as a mother, she was evolving in her perception of her role with her own children, this played out over a period of years.
The audience will certainly play a part in what is next for Avatar as well, given the filmmaker also recently said it’ll need to make “two metric fucktons of money to make a profit.” You can see Avatar: Fire And Ash in theaters starting December 19.
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